how i feel about lolita

// trigger warning: rape, sexual abuse & sexual assault //

J-term is finally over! For those of you who don't go to a school as strange as mine (jk love ya Messiah), J-term is three hours a day for three weeks to earn three credits. Over the past month, whenever I made small talk with someone, there would come the inevitable question, "So, what are you taking for J-term?" I'd have liked to tell them that I was taking a course on Lolita and critical theory, but that inevitably lead to this exchange:

them: Lolita?

me: Yeah, it's a book by Vladimir Nabokov.

them: NAH-buh-kov? What's the book about?

me: Uhh... *coughs* It's *sigh* a book about a pedophile who kidnaps and rapes a 12 year-old girl.

You may thus be able to understand why I simply decided to tell people I was taking a course on literary theory and leave it at that. But despite the unease the book causes people, I found myself enjoying the book the more I studied it. And no, I do not belong to the camp of people who think it's some sort of love story. (That's what happens when you don't practice close reading, but that's another post.) After taking an entire course on the book, I can confirm: Lolita is not a love story, but I do think it is worth reading. Here's why.

First of all, Lolita is about more than just a man raping a little girl. Actually, the language in the text, while making its readers uncomfortable, is not explicit. The book is about Humbert Humbert, a 37-year-old Frenchman who has recently moved to the New England. Humbert has a condition which he describes as 'nympholepsy,' an irresistible attraction to what he calls 'nymphets,' demoniac girls between the ages of 11 and 14 (though not every girl this age is considered a 'nymphet'). Humbert claims he has this condition because his first love, Annabel Lee, died when she was 14, leaving him stuck, in a sense, in his sexuality. Humbert ends up renting a room in a house owned by Charlotte Haze, attracted there by Charlotte's 12-year-old daughter Dolores.

I'm not going to describe the entire plot, because I'm not about to spoil the book. What you need to know is that Lolita is such a controversial book because it is told from Humbert's point-of-view. He narrates the plot in such a way so as to convince the reader that his actions are not really morally wrong, he is not truly sexually deviant--we are just trained as a culture to see that sexual attraction to pubescent girls is gross. It's really not all that bad. And, besides, he can't help it--Lolita is the one who seduced him, not the other way around.

The sick thing is that Humbert's rhetorical strategy actually works. A review of Lolita from Vanity Fair called it "the only convincing love story of our century." ‡ Many people believe this. Others think that Humbert is just a poor man who succumbed to Lolita's deadly charms. Even I, for all of my training in the art of close reading, felt bad for Humbert at times. I knew that what Humbert does to Dolores is wrong, I knew that he is an unreliable narrator, I knew that everything he says is with the intention of misleading the reader--but I still fell for it.

Humbert is utterly successfully at manipulating his audience, and that's what makes the book. We believe his lies and deceptions against our will. It takes a strong will and consistent effort to resist Humbert's rhetoric. Human nature leads us to not only want to see the best in people, but also take the path of least resistance, that we end up believing Humbert in spite of ourselves. Reading Lolita is an exercise in willpower. It shows that even the most vigilant readers can be misled.

Humbert builds up his credibility in the beginning of the story by telling of his idyllic yet tragic childhood. Then he sets the stage in New England, scene-by-scene. Because there is nothing to indicate that he is lying, the reader begins to trust him. But when Dolores Haze enters the picture, the lies begin to build up. Before we realize it, we have fallen for the trap. We are most suspicious when there is nothing to be suspicious about and most trusting when we should be skeptical. By manipulating our critical evaluation skills, Humbert manages to turn our own brains against us and convince us to unconsciously root for him.

Why should you read Lolita? It is one of the hardest books I've ever read. I thought I was a critical reader, but this novel tested me in every way. I had to pay close attention, because every tiny detail is important. Nabokov includes information that seems insignificant, but it always goes beyond the surface meaning. For example, there is a fictional foreword that includes all sorts of details on what happened to the characters after the tale ends, but none of it makes sense until after you finish the book. I've read the book twice, and I still don't fully understand it.

If you're looking for something to read that is intellectually and morally challenging, I definitely recommend Lolita. Read at your own risk.

xx Liz

What are your thoughts on Lolita?

* image c/o Goodreads

† note: I don't like the seductive pose the girl on the cover displays, but most covers of the book are uncomfy in one way or another, unfortunately.

‡ source: see 'praise'